Imminent resolution for the Judicial Fòrum of TGN The Parking of the Miracle "does not touch" RELLOTges Tarragonins Caridad Barraquer, the woman who saved the BOSC of the Marquise del Ladrillo

Between the tip of the mob.It is a place, in a privileged place, which in 1998 received funds from the European Life project for its conservation.A space that maintains the essence of the wild coast of Croatia and the Costa Blanca for forty years ago, which in the sixties and seventies escaped the real estate boom that speculated with the coast of this country.The same did not happen with these lands, although there were no missing offers.And the architect of this work is Caridad Barraquer de Borràs, Marquesa de la Bárcena, and owner of the place, which had the unpayable conviction of preserving this space and away from all those investors who wore around them.

Who was Caridad Barraquer de Borràs?In Tarragona we did not find any street or place with the name of it, although the city should consider this possibility if it wants to preserve the memory of a woman who has been a common environment for more than sixty years ago at that time in those times in those times.One of the only initiatives to know his figure was through the documentary cycle gifts to the historoutstanding women and their relationship with the city.In this case, the person in charge of recovering its history was the Tarraconense Biologist Puri Canals, who highlights the "courage" of a woman who challenged the regime to maintain the natural value of the farm.

The grandson of the Marquise, Agustín Peyra, speaks a little more about the character of this woman.Born in Barcelona around 1895, she says that "she was a lady thrown forward with a complicated life, which never went to school, but that she received an education with private teachers".This provided him with advanced knowledge at the time, since in addition to studying music and painting he spoke German and French.

Daughter of Benet de Barraquer and Manuela de Borràs, who later married Lluís Fontana, Charity received from her mother the noble title in addition to the land she had in the Riera de Gaià.Manuela also transferred her most rabassa and most Grimau daughter, who had inherited from her second husband, who had a very important agricultural exploitation and had always maintained a great interest in earth.And proof of this is that in a part of the land the palm trees still survive that Colonel Fontana brought from the Philippines War and that he planted on the property.

Start again

During the Civil War, the family took refuge in Barcelona and it was not until the contest that could recover the farm that had been seized.This was completely "discard"."More Grimau was used as a weapons ammunition warehouse and before the nationals entered, they made it fly, for this reason the walls are preserved, but not the roof," explains Canals.However, this did not prevent Caridad Barraquer from starting working hard to recover exploitation and continue agricultural activity.There were vineyards and planted Olivos, but there was a lot of money and for this he decided.

La Marquesa was still living in Barcelona, but the holiday spent in this environment, to which a couple of days a week escaped to see how everything was."He arrived with the train and then they were going to look for her at the station, first with a car and then with a motorcycle," explains Peyra.At the end of the fifties the first tourists began to arrive and some of these, mainly Germans, camped around the palm trees that Lluís Fontana had planted in the area in the area.This is how the Las Palmeras Camping was later born, which today remains one of the referents in the city."She did not believe in tourism, but saw the earth as something solid," argues Peyra.

At the end of the 50s, Caridad Barraquer began to receive the first proposals to sell the farm.This was a privileged area and the urban development of the coast was beginning.Behind one of these initiatives was Diego Méndez, who was the last architect of the Valley of the Fallen.In December 1959 he presented him with a project that foresaw the construction of a frameworking, with blocks of apartments that occupied the entire first sea line, both in La Platja Llarga and in more Grimau.A church was even drawn and, together with this more intensive part, the Bosc of La Marques.

"The grandmother did not want to throw it forward, because she had a great love for the farm," says Peyra.The family still retains the documents of a proposal that had been written carefully, with handmade maps and that accurately detail the transformation that wanted to make.But Marquesa did not want to listen to the proposal and even "wrote a letter to Franco telling him that he estimated that land a lot and that he liked it a lot," says Canals.

This was not the only proposal he received during those years."The grandmother had many pressures of investors who wanted to develop the farm and its surroundings urbanistically," says Agustín Peyra.Every time one of these proposals arrived, it was an upset for the family and one of the fears was that one of these projects that made them lose the land arrived."There was a lot of talk about it, as a child I had heard the word expropriation a lot," he says.There was even a time when the educational complex of work in this environment was built by the sea.

Urban desert

With the arrival of democracy these pressures even increased, but the family did not stop.One of the anecdotes that demonstrates the character of Caridad Barraquer happened as a result of a meeting with one of these promoters, who wanted to get the land."When he asked if he was aware of what he could do with the money he was offering, her response was that he knew it perfectly, that a farm like this would be bought and that, as he already had, he did not need the money", Puri Canals recounts.If this is already groundbreaking at this time, in years of real estate bubble it was practically inconceivable.

«Now we would have a Salou or a Benidorm, because the philosophy of the time was to occupy the coastline.This today, when there is more environmental awareness has a value, but let's not forget that even in the nineties Mayor Nadal claimed that Tarragona was an urban desert that began where Altafulla ends up and ends up in Salou.A city that would not develop urbanistically was a dead city and today we have a unique coast because she had enough with what she had, ”adds Canals.

In 1986 the Natura La Gla group was created, which was in charge of going to reforest and go to plant Encinas.Among the members was Puri Canals, who explains that "in one of this excursions we discovered this environment and the ecological value of space".It was from this moment, when the Bosc of the Marquise began to be discussed as such.

Years later, in 1996 from Depana, a proposal was made for a European project to manage the environment that, finally, two years later received the Life program funds."It was a fairly modelic project, because today there is much talk about custody of the territory, but at that time there was even the concept," says Canals.It was also groundbreaking, because it was one of the first custody initiatives of the territory led by an NGO, with the collaboration of public administrations and owners.

During these years the management of a space was guaranteed that finally, in 2000, the Generalitat included within the Pla D’Armpic.This protection figure shielded the farm at the urban level, although it did not prevent the fears from reappearing in 2006, when the Tarragona City Council and state coasts promoted the construction of a seafront in the Llarga Platja, which affected a part of the land."It was because of the sensitivity that the grandmother transmitted to us, that we opposed and got the cancellation of the project in the courts," says Peyra.

Courage, sensitivity, strength and fighter are some of the attributes that are granted to Caridad Barraquer, the woman who preserved this place of urban speculation.